Hospital on red alert as it struggles with beds

The West Australian

Wednesday, 15 July 2009 11:36PM

The number of available beds at Royal Perth Hospital reached a critical point yesterday, leaving some wards short staffed and prompting WA's leading doctors' group to warn that the health system was struggling to cope with the busy winter season.

RPH implemented a "bed state red/critical" status yesterday morning, the second highest level on the hospital's co-ordinated response system.

The highest black level indicates there are no beds available, all staffed beds are open and all contingency measures are exhausted, leaving the hospital in a gridlock.

Escalating the status to red showed the hospital had insufficient beds to meet elective and emergency demand, as well as internal transfers from critical care areas, including the acute admission unit and the short stay medical unit.

It meant all active beds were open and elective patients for admission were at risk of being cancelled.

It also showed access block — the failure to find a ward bed for emergency patients within eight hours — had reached between 36 and 50 per cent in the emergency department. The status indicated some patients were waiting more than 24 hours to be admitted.

Ambulances were ramped for more than eight hours, an increase of 50 per cent on the previous week.

Ramping is a term used for ambulances being forced to park while patients wait to be admitted to overcrowded emergency departments.

RPH's emergency department had 52 patients, with 10 waiting to be seen yesterday afternoon.

Australian Medical Association WA emergency medicine spokesman Dave Mountain said the escalation of status to red at RPH showed the WA health system was struggling to cope with normal surges in numbers.

He said emergency departments were typically busiest on Mondays, coping with admissions and elective work from the weekend as well as patients who had seen their GPs and were then referred to hospital.

"We all have days and weeks where we reach that point and we are overloaded and not coping with normal demand," Dr Mountain said.

"But the fact is that we are like that pretty much all through the year."

He said emergency departments were usually busiest in September and October as viruses like the flu spread.

A Royal Perth Hospital spokeswoman said a bed capacity plan had recently been introduced to optimise patient flow.